The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s 2019/2020 season features a sensible balance between major popular works of the repertoire, alluring works from the 20th century, a healthy selection of newer Canadian music, and a wide and welcome representation of women composers

Chief conductor Alexander Prior conducting the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. The ESO has announced an innovative and exciting 2019/2020 season, which contains a large number of works by women composers.Leroy Schulz / Supplied

The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s 2019/2020 season looks to be an inventive and exciting one, with a variety that should only enhance the orchestra’s reputation. There is a sensible balance between major popular works of the repertoire, alluring works from the 20th century, a healthy selection of newer Canadian music, and in particular a wide and welcome representation of women composers.

The ESO have given a theme to the season, calling it ‘Inextinguishable’. That, of course, is the title of Nielsen’s magnificent Symphony No.4, which chief conductor Alexander Prior will be conducting on March 6 and 7, alongside Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with ESO concertmaster Robert Uchida as soloist, and Ciel d’hiver (Winter Sky) by the brilliant Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.

Prior also conducts a concert that combines a classic of the orchestral repertoire, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, a classic of the 20th century repertoire, John Adams’ compelling Grand Pianola Music, and innovation from a Canadian composer: Nicole Lizée’s La terre a des maux, with a text by Algonquin-Quebecois rapper Samian (Nov. 29 and 30).

The two final concerts of the season also look like blockbusters. The distinguished German pianist Bernd Glemser plays Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and Prior continues his exploration of the symphonies of Bruckner with the lyrical and magisterial Symphony No.7 on June 4. Two days later, Glemser is the soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4, the Bruckner is repeated, and the concert features A Child’s Dream of Toys, by Vivian Fung, who grew up in Edmonton.

New Canadian works include I Lost My Talk by Edmonton’s own John Estacio, which uses a text by Mi’kmaw elder and poet Rita Joe. The concert also features Music for a Celebration by one of the best Canadian composers, Alexina Louie, and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, all conducted by Jean-Marie Zeitouni (Oct. 6).

The Juno Award-winning My Name is Amanda Todd, by Vancouver composer Jocelyn Morlock, is a work which “starkly indicts the cyber abuse and bullying that led to the young woman’s suicide while still expressing empathy and hope.” It is featured in a concert conducted by Alexander Shelley, alongside Britten’s Cello Concerto with Stéphane Tétreault as soloist (Jan. 25).

Inuit composer and throat singer Tanya Tagaq’s Qiksaaktuq (Grief) is dedicated to the lives of missing and murdered Indigenous women, and will be conducted by Christine Duncan on Feb. 22. ESO cellist Rafael Hoekman is the soloist in Canadian composer Kelly Marie-Murphy’s This Is the Colour of My Dreams on March 28. Nicole Lizée’s delightful three-minute Zeiss After Dark can be heard on Jan. 19.

Of the other women composers featured, Cheng gives a rare performance of Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto on March 26. Sofia Gubaidulina, a controversial and pioneering composer in the Soviet period, has become much better known since the end of the USSR, and her Concordanza for 10-piece ensemble can be heard on May 22 and 23, 2020. The draw for that concert will undoubtedly be pianist Marc-André Hamelin, playing a less-known Russian concerto, Medtner’s Piano Concerto No.2.

Grażyna Bacewicz was a powerful Polish composer whose music well deserves to be more widely heard. Her Sinfonietta will be conducted by Daniel Raiskin (Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director), alongside the ever-popular Charles Richard-Hamelin playing Chopin’s sparkling Piano Concerto No.1 (Jan. 10 and 11).

Anna Clyne is an English composer who now lives in the USA. Her rich and melodic This Midnight Hour will appear in a concert that includes Tchaikovsky’s popular Violin Concerto with Bella Hristova as soloist, and Dvořák’s seventh symphony, all conducted by Michael Stern (Nov. 16). ‘blue cathedral’, one of the most-performed works by acclaimed American composer Jennifer Higdon, can be heard on April 24 and 25, alongside works for saxophone and orchestra by Debussy and Villa-Lobos played by the 20-year old British virtuoso Jess Gillam.

In the Sunday Showcase series of afternoon concerts, the exciting 26-year-old German-Greek pianist Danae Dörken plays Mendelssohn’s second piano concerto, conducted by Williams Eddins (Oct. 29). A rare performance of French composer Alexandre Guilmant’s powerful Symphonie No. 1 for Organ and Orchestra can be heard on Nov. 24, with the young prize-winning Canadian Rashaan Allwood as soloist.

As ever, the season opens in Hawrelak Park with Symphony Under the Sky (Aug. 29 through Sept. 1). There’s a Celtic spectacular featuring fiddler Eileen Iver, Brahms’ Cello Concerto and Dvořák’s New World Symphony in the classical music concert, the classic Hollywood Hits evening, and big band hits on the final evening.

There is also a wide-ranging variety of concerts of popular music, from Robert Bernhardt conducting a salute to the music of the Eagles (May 12, 2020), through the songs of Lerner and Loewe (May 8, 2020) and a tribute to Aretha Franklin (June 13, 2020), to The Music of Star Wars (Dec. 13-15).

Prior has referred to this new season as being one of “life-force music” — inextinguishable, indeed, and another exciting new chapter in the ESO’s evolution.